What chemicals are used for pest control in Australia

by Saidul H. Professional Writer

What happens when your best intentions and the reality of life don’t match up? For example, we all want to protect the environment and be responsible citizens of the world. But when you get a nasty stain on your favourite shirt, you want the toughest detergent you can find, whether or not it will kill a few fish as you pour it down the drain.

Similarly, we’d all like to eat organic in theory. But truly organic food is expensive, and many times, junk food and pesticide-laced grains are kinder on your pocket. You can’t always afford to be conscientious when it comes to household chemicals. Still, it’s sometimes a matter of health rather than expedience. Certain pesticides will kill pests – yes – but they may also harm pets and human residents, so you need to be careful.

Commercial pest control services vary slightly when they’re used for agricultural or residential purposes. If you’re preventing or eliminating pests in a garden, greenhouse, or plantation, you could lace the irrigation water with chemicals, or you could spray the soil and leaves of your plants. Some seeds are treated with pesticides even before you plant them, so whatever grows from them is resistant to pests.

House pests vs garden pests

On the other hand, if you’re trying to get rid of pests in a house, school, or office, poisoned bait is a more viable alternative. You have to be careful that the wrong target doesn’t eat the toxic food, such as a pet or a small child. For larger pests likes rodents, you might track them to their homes then spray their burrows, discouraging them from leaving their lairs and venturing into yours. This type of fumigation is routinely done for rabbits and foxes.

It might also be used with possums and ferrets, because it’s illegal to kill or move these creatures. You have to get a permit to fumigate them though, because they are protected by the government. The fumigation chemical you use depends on the pest in question. In the past, rabbits were often gassed with Larvacide, a brand name for chloropicrin.

A high-pressure fumigation machine was used to push this chemical into rabbit holes (they’re called warrens). However, chloropicrin is dangerous for humans and it hurts the rabbits, so it’s not used anymore. Instead, you can fumigate a rabbit warren using phosphine tablets. These are aluminium phosphide pills dipped in a little water.

Gassing outdoor pests

The water triggers the tablets to emit a gas that is toxic to rabbits. If you place the phosphine at the hole’s entrance, then the rabbits can’t get out. For foxes, instead of using pills, cartridges filled with carbon monoxide are tossed into the fox den. The exterminator has to be careful not to inhale the gas, since it can lead to suffocation.

Rabbits and foxes are more of a problem for farms, where they might eat your crops or chicken respectively. In a house or office, you’re more likely to deal with ants, bedbugs, cockroaches, termites, and possibly rats and mice. You may even have the occasional possum. Ants stereotypically enjoy sweet foods, but you can bait them with a mixture of corn, crushed and soaked in the oil of soy beans. Add measured toxins to this bait.

The types of chemicals added to ant bait include pyriproxyfen, methoprene, fipronil, and hydramethylnon. These are potentially harmful chemicals, so they can’t be used by just anyone. You need a permit to apply them, and they’re best administered by trained exterminators. Even the process of mixing bait and pesticides is a carefully calibrated one, so don’t try this at home.

Keeping your home pest-free

Treating animals in their homes can only do so much. It may keep them from exiting, but how do you deal with them when they’re already in your space? In such cases, baited food products work well, laced with chemicals that will deter the pests. The dosage has to be set by experts, to roughly determine when and where the poison will kick in. You don’t want them dying in your yard and inviting scavengers that may be worse than the pests themselves.

For rabbits, you can bait them with pindone. It’s sold in the form of poison-laced oats. Mice can be controlled with doses of zinc phosphide. It works on other small rodents as well. When they eat the bait, it mixes with moisture in their stomachs, unleashing phosphine into their digestive systems. In Australia, it includes brands like MouseOff and DeadMouse.

For larger canines like wild dogs and foxes, strychnine is recommended. You can also use 1080 or PAPP, which are harsher chemicals. 1080 is especially effective feral cats and wild pigs. The chemical component in 1080 is sodium Fluor acetate. Whichever chemical you use, read the instructions carefully and follow all safety precautions.